Chapter 46

It tookme a good few minutes to be able to open my eyes all the way again, even though I didn’t sleep. We were in bed, and I was still naked, wrapped up in silk sheets and Grey. In his room. On his bed that nobody else had ever shared.

I was on my back and he was on his stomach, his wings folded and on full display, an arm under his cheek while he watched me.

My heart all but imploded.

I really needed to stay away from his desk if this was the aftermath of him having his way with me there.

My hand moved up to my neck again, to the tiny punctures on my skin I could barely feel anymore.

“I only took a little,” Grey said, touching my neck, too, and he suddenly looked sorry—which was beyond me.

“It was perfect.” When he’d taken my blood in the shower, it had brought me a kind of peace I’d never felt before in my life. So much better than the Blood Call.

He dragged himself closer to me until our lips touched. He kissed me slowly and raised on his elbows so his face was right in front of mine. “If you ever ask me to bite you again, I want you to know that you’re perfectly safe. I would never hurt you, Fall. I’d pull my fangs out of myself first. Do you understand?”

I was smiling like a damn idiot. “Oh, no. I’m so afraid. Get off me, you filthy, bloodsucking vampire. Get away from me, get away…” I wrapped my arms around his neck, forearms grazing the edges of his wings.

Grey shook his head, smiling. “I am a very dangerous creature for real,” he reminded me.

“Mhmm. You’re tough as nails, I’m sure you are. However, I was just sitting at your desk a few minutes ago, and I saw how you, erm…work. It’s safe to say I am not afraid of you in the least.”

Those beautiful eyes of his lit up as he grinned wider. “Really? Not even a little?”

“Nope. Not at all.” I gave him a quick peck on the lips, and he was already bringing his body over mine, slowly, casually, like he was afraid I’d notice.

I did, but I still didn’t say anything. Just for another minute.

“Damn. Here I thought I’d built a reputation for myself and everybody in the Isles was afraid of me,” he teased, biting my lower lip.

“Sorry to disappoint.” I was barely able to get the words out because he wouldn’t let go.

“It’s okay. I’ll just have you shaking for me in other ways. That desk was just the beginning,” he said, falling on top of me.

Surprise, surprise. His dick was hard, and I was turned on a second in.

“No.”

I pushed him off me so fast you’d think he was on fire because that voice in my head had gotten really loud again.

“No way in hell. The desk was enough. More than enough right now.” Though it wasn’t. Not even close to enough. “We are going to talk, Grey. Talk—remember? What we were going to do before the shower and before the desk?”

The asshole was laughing as he slowly sat up, the cover sliding off his perfect body to reveal that he’d taken his sweatpants off. I could see just the tip of his cock.

Goddamn it.My mouth watered.

“Cover yourself, Grey. Come on, pull that cover up!” I brought my hands to my face to stop myself from looking, but it was too late. I already saw.

He was laughing so hard the entire bed shook.

“Okay, okay, I’m decent, I promise. You can look now,” he eventually said. I believed him, so I looked.

He was propped up on one elbow on his side, the cover over his hips, covering his cock, though revealing the shape of it perfectly. Also, his chest was naked.

And also—wings.

“That’s not even close to decent, Grey Evernight. Put a damn shirt on! They make them for a reason.” His nakedness would seduce me two minutes in even if he wasn’t trying. I’d lost my head so fast when I went to his desk just a few minutes ago, hadn’t I?

Dangerous Grey.

“I am not about to leave this bed while you’re still lying on it. Not even for a second,” he said.

So, I grabbed the cover and pulled it up all the way to his neck. “Keep it there.”

His shoulders were still shaking. “Done. Anything else, my queen?”

Goose bumps on my arms. He’d called me that just as he was about to eat me on his desk, too. “I’m no queen,” I muttered settling on the pillow again, the cover all the way up to my neck as well. We really did need to talk.

“You’re my queen,” Grey said. “And my queen wants to talk, so we’ll talk. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

Even as he said that, he was looking at my nipples, hard as rock, peaking through the soft satin cover.

And I, myself, was looking at the shape of his cock that said cover revealed so perfectly.

“We need new sheets,” I muttered. Preferably thick ones made out of cotton.

“Done,” Grey said.

He was going to make me blush. “Talk.”

“Yes, talk. What do you want to talk about?”

“This.” Wasn’t it obvious? “This whole thing. I am still terribly confused, and I can’t think at all when I’m with you.” Because I just wanted to kiss and touch and fuck him—why waste time with other, so much less important things?

“I’m flattered,” said Grey with a grin, and I rolled my eyes, trying to stifle my smile.

“Not a compliment.” Though it was. “I mean it, Grey. I was brought here by Mama Si against my will. I’ve wanted to leave this place since the second your dragon dropped me in the Woods.”

Grey flinched. “She’ll pay for that,” he said, but I shook my head.

“Regardless—it’s already done. And I am not from here. I am human. Or I used to be—but this place is not my home.” It didn’t matter whether Mama Si paid for it or not—I was here. I was part of the Isles now. I was an Enchanted. The damage was done.

“Fall, if there was a way to break this curse and take you wherever in the world you want to be, I’d be doing it right now. I’d live the rest of my life in misery, probably wasting away in a cave somewhere, but I’d take you there myself,” he said. “The curse can’t be broken or manipulated or tricked.”

I reached out to touch his beautiful face despite my better judgment. He meant every word, and suddenly I was imagining everything he said—him living alone in a dark cave, and me out there in the human world somewhere, far, far away from him.

My stomach twisted like I’d just been stabbed.

God, I was so screwed.

“Actually, it can,” I said, looking down at my other hand as he kissed my palm, holding it to his face. “Look at this ring. It’s an amethyst, and it’s magic. It makes its wearer invisible to all kinds of magic—even the curse.”

Grey stopped kissing my fingertips and put my hand down on the bed, but he didn’t let go. Instead, he laced his fingers to mine and shook his head, “That’s not possible.”

“It is. It’s possible.” And I’d been so close to leaving. So fucking close I’d tasted the freedom.

I wanted to tell him that, too. I wanted to tell him everything—I trusted Grey more than I ever had anybody else in my life. But for a moment there, I was stuck in silence, wondering if I regretted not leaving then. Wondering if I should have chosen the real world then—because now?

Fuck, now things were so much more complicated. Now, I was lying in bed with Grey, and I was about ninety-five percent sure I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world but here forever.

“Baby, it’s not,” Grey said. “There is not a single kind of magic that works against the curse. Not a ring, not a spell, not anything.”

I did a double take, then blinked my eyes a million times. “No, she said it did. She said it made you invisible to all kinds of magic.”

Grey narrowed his brows. “Who?”

Her face painted itself in front of me instantly. “Your mother.”

The way Grey’s eyes darkened instantly made me wonder if maybe I’d said something else, something bad, something vile.

“She gave you this?” He took my other hand in his to look at the ring. I nodded. “May I?”

“Yes, sure.”

He took it off my finger and brought it closer to inspect it, then sniffed it hard. “There’s magic in this. A lot of magic,” he said, turning to me again. “But there is no kind of magic in any of the Isles that could get you out of the curse. If there was, all the generations of Evernights that came before me would have found it.” He touched my cheek lightly. “Most don’t want to live here, tied to this place, Fall. Given the chance, only Romin, and maybe Tristian, would choose to stay in the Whispering Woods like this. The rest of us? We would all leave.”

His every word rang true.

Suddenly, my mind went back to his mother, to that room that looked like the sky. A grey sky.

The words she said to me—how much she missed the real sky and the real world. How tired she was of living in isolation.

And it occurred to me, if she had a ring that could take her out there in the real world, why wouldn’t she use it for herself? Why would she give it to me?

“Grey,” I whispered. “What would happen to me if I….say, walked away? Left the Isles? Went back home right now?”

“You can’t leave now. The Blood Call ties you to the Whispering Woods, and if you tried, it would attack you physically. Rip you apart trying to pull you back in.”

I flinched. “Before it. Before the Blood Call—what would have happened if I’d left then?”

Grey paused for a second. “You would’ve died.”

“But how? Would the curse kill me the same way? Would it rip me apart to stop me from leaving?” God, those words sounded so awful.

“No, it would kill you by taking back the magic that is now inside of you. The farther away from the Isles you are, the quicker the curse takes back your magic,” Grey explained. “Without it, your body would wither and die. Not right away, but I would imagine within weeks.”

My eyes squeezed shut and my heart stood perfectly still for a long moment.

Pieces clicked into place, and I realized I’d been such a fool. My God, I’d been such a damn fool!

“Fall, talk to me. What are you thinking?”

“Valentine,” I whispered. “Does he know that as well? Does he know what happens when a bride leaves before the Blood Call?”

“Of course,” he said without missing a beat.

Of course.

Valentine had told Genevieve to give me this ring. Valentine had taken me through the mirror into Faeries’ Aerie and had basically convinced me that the ring would take me back home unscathed.

Valentine had known. He’d wanted to fucking kill me.

“There’s something…not right with that boy. I don’t know what he told you, but he’s not to be trusted,” Grey said. “I swear it, it’s not my jealousy speaking.”

Of course, it wasn’t. It wasn’t his fucking jealousy—he just knew his brother. I had only thought I did.

“I knew it first the day of the offering,” he continued, and I flinched. The offering. Mama Si. “The moment we saw you, we chose you, and Storm claimed you to the others, as he should. But that little thing…that tiny dragon cheated. He bit you before Storm could.” He seemed pissed off and confused about it at the same time. “I mean, why doesn’t he grow? Why is he still so small? Dragons grow at an incredible rate, within weeks.”

I couldn’t reply because my mind was busy with other things. Other horrible—horrible things.

“My God, Grey. He almost killed me,” I said instead, sitting up on the bed, not really seeing anything.

“What?”

“He almost killed me. Valentine, he…he almost killed me.” By offering me my freedom. By tricking me into thinking I could walk away from the Isles and live my life the way I wanted to. By tricking me into thinking that he was sacrificing himself for me.

“He wouldn’t dare. To hurt a bride, to even pose a threat to her in any way means instant banishment,” Grey reminded me, and I laughed.

Oh, how I laughed my heart out.

Of course, it did—but he would never be responsible for my death. He would never tell anyone that it was him who took me to Faeries’ Aerie. Nobody would fucking know—they’d just assume I ran away. It wouldn’t be too hard to believe considering I’d made no secret of the fact that I wanted to go back home since the day I arrived here.

“Talk to me, Fall,” said Grey, grabbing my face in his hands. He’d sat up, too, his wings half spread to the sides.

He looked fucking majestic—and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Valentine was not who he pretended to be.

Mama Si hadn’t been who she’d pretended to be, either.

What about Grey?

“Someone’s planning something,” I thought I whispered. “Someone’s planning something, and I think Valentine is planning something, too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not just him—it’s everyone,” he said. “Even Genevieve—you should never trust her, Fall.”

To hear him say that about his own mother… I shook my head, at a loss for words for a moment.

He smiled sadly.

“I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I know how I sound.” He closed his eyes for a moment, as if he were gathering himself. “I’ve never told anyone this before, but I’m sure she convinced my father to challenge me when he did, knowing he’d lose.”

White noise in my ears for a moment.

Words Genevieve had said to me that day in her room came back to me—I knew Grey would be challenged by his father—and win—since he was five years old.

My God…

“She is part of the reason why my magic is stronger than that of my brothers, why it comes so much more easily to me. Some humans have more affinity to magic than others naturally, and that was Genevieve’s case. Since the beginning she was stronger than any other bride in the records. She passed that power onto me when she had me, and she knew it since the day I was born.”

My eyes squeezed shut. God, I didn’t want to believe it. Even though I didn’t doubt a single word out of Grey’s lips, I didn’t want to believe it.

“There’s a reason why I choose to be the way I am with the people who live here, Fall,” Grey said, inviting my eyes to his again. “I’m good at reading people. I’m very good at it, unfortunately, and they’re all snakes in disguise. It’s why I keep everyone away.”

My heart broke for him, for the sad look in his eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what the hell else to say right now.

Grey’s lips opened, but he didn’t get to make a single sound. His eyes went to the doors across from us instead.

Then he jumped off the bed lightning fast.

Thirty seconds later, someone slammed their fists on the door twice, then pushed them open. By then, Grey had his sweatpants on and was standing in the middle of the room with his wings slightly spread to the sides, hiding me from Romin and Emil, who were striding in like they fucking owned the place.

I held the sheets to my chest for dear life, barely breathing.

“That’s far enough,” Grey said, and both Romin and Emil stopped walking a few feet into the room. I couldn’t see their faces from the wings, but I could imagine they were looking at me or trying to see me in bed.

Oh, God, please…I prayed, though I wasn’t even sure what for.

“It’s time, brother. We’ll be doing the vows in five minutes. Let’s move.”

Every inch of my body froze in place.

I jumped off the bed, wrapping the sheets around me as many times as I could manage as I went closer to them. Grey turned to look at me for a second, and he looked sorry.

“Time for what?” I asked, though I knew. I knew very well what time it was.

Fuck, I thought it was still midnight. I thought I’d only slept for a few minutes after the shower. I thought there was time!

“The challenge,” Romin said, eyes on fire as he looked at the sheets around my body.

Grey’s wing suddenly came in front of me, covering me up as he gave a murderous look to his brother. The tension was so thick in the air so suddenly, I could touch it if I tried.

“You should keep those shielded, little brother. Spare the energy,” Romin said, nodding at the wings.

“I’ll keep them. You can wait for me outside,” said Grey.

“Of course, of course, yes. I imagine you feel all mighty and strong to see them. To feel them. I was like that, too, when I first got mine,” Romin said, as if to remind him that he had wings, too.

“You can wait outside, Romin,” Grey repeated, his voice low and dark.

“No,” the vampire simply said, a small smile on his face. “We need to go. Now. Dawn is in an hour. Move it, brother.” And he stepped to the side, waving for Grey to walk out the doors. Emil moved, too, though his eyes were on me. I couldn’t stand to be looked at by him now—ugh—when he’d felt so good when he sucked the blood out of me during the Blood Call.

My head spun with another memory that came so suddenly it froze me in place.

Fuck, all of them had been watching Grey fuck me two nights ago, and they’d all jerked themselves off, right there on the bed.

Fuck! How the hell had I forgotten that?!

Grey wanted to argue. I could tell just by the way the muscles on his back tensed.

But then he turned and moved his wings to either side of me, separating us from the rest of the room.

“Please, don’t,” I whispered, grabbing his face in my hands. I rose on my tiptoes and kissed him. “Just ask him to change his mind. He’ll withdraw the challenge. Please!”

Grey wrapped his arms around me tightly. “I can’t. I’m sorry, baby, but I can’t do that.”

“Time’s ticking…” Romin sang, and we both ignored him.

“There has to be a way. There’s so much I need to talk to you about—can’t you just postpone it?!”

“I can’t. Impossible. We’ll talk after, okay? We’ll talk for days, but right now, I have to go.” He let go of me and smoothed my hair away from my face. My hair that was dry—and that should have been the perfect indicator for me that hours had passed since that shower. A lot of hours.

“Grey…”

He kissed me gently, just a quick peck. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“No—I’m coming with.”

“Bad idea. Just go back to bed and get some sleep,” he said, but I wasn’t having it.

“I will get dressed and I will come with you. That’s non-negotiable.” If he thought I could sit here in this room and wait for that fucking challenge to end, he was delusional.

“She should come. She should see what happens when the Evernights get challenged. Right, brother?” Emil said.

“Yes, I think so,” said Romin.

The sound of them made Grey flinch, and he was trying so hard to block them out.

Fuck, I suddenly hated them with a passion for not leaving us alone. And I wanted to spite them so badly, so I whispered to Grey, knowing they’d hear, “Please, let me come with. I’ll be a very good girl for you if you do.”

The smile that broke his face was full of surprise, but he knew. He knew very well what I was doing.

I was going to that challenge no matter what he said, but damn if I didn’t want to piss Romin and Emil off just for daring to barge in here like this.

“Then you’ll be there, baby,” Grey said, giving me another kiss. “Go. Get dressed. We’ll wait outside.”

He let go of me and turned around, spreading his wings so that his brothers couldn’t even catch a quick glimpse of me before they walked out. Grey turned around to pull the doors closed, a mischievous grin on his beautiful face that made my heart stop and stare, too, for a beat.

Then he closed the doors, and I was all alone in his bedroom, feeling like I was about to witness the end of the fucking world for real.